Rethinking Right-node Raising

Abstract Despite decades of research on Right-node Raising (RNR), the phenomenon has remained elusive, seemingly defying the laws of syntax as we know it. This paper argues that this is so because RNR is not a bona fide syntactic phenomenon at all, but rather a paratactic configuration composed in discourse. RNR configurations consist of an unbounded sequence of potentially incomplete expressions whose prosodic realization provokes the expectation of a continuation, which is furnished by a sequence-final expression which, depending on the type of RNR, is either sentential or fragmentary. It is shown that this analysis can reconcile seemingly contradictory properties of RNR constructions, crucially by abandoning the long-standing assumption that RNR configurations are constructed in sentential syntax.